My Garden This Weekend – 12th May 2013

I think this weekend’s gardening can be described as wet, windy, muddy with brief intervals in the greenhouse.

The big project has powered forward with the last of the turf being lifted.  This last bit was used to square off the front garden lawn and also to replace a large bare path on the grass path.  Whilst my son was turf lifting I had the job of rescuing and replanting the plants I wanted to keep from the left hand side of the slope.   This was quite tricky as the plants on the slope are all late summer perennials and so identifying which was which aster or helianthus was a challenge.  I did know that I wanted to get rid of the Helianthus Lemon Queen which dominated the slope last year, as well as a day lily which only looked good when the foliage appeared in spring, some Luzula nivea which only the cat likes and a large Achillea grandiflora which was threatening to take over.  Once these were removed it was a case of working across the slope that is going and transplanting the plants I wanted into the gaps the other plants had made.  The bulb leafs were just as challenging to identify with no flowers – at one point I thought I was digging up some blind daffodils only to discover that it was in fact an eremurus.  I tried them on the slope two years ago and they never flowered so they are getting a second chance in the new border.

The blossom on the step-over apples is about to open

My son’s next step was to remove the dry stone wall my Dad had built some years ago to hold up the slope.  We were impressed at what a good job he had done and how big the Malvern stone was once we had dragged it out from under the earth.  There is now a large pile of stone which we will use to landscape around the workshop and to do a better job of edging the new steps.  A substantial amount of top soil was removed and put onto the new border which after some racking and leveling will be ready for planting up next weekend.  There is still lots of soil and even more clay to be removed but that is now a job for bank holiday weekend.

Molopospermum peloponnesiacum

Our  efforts were frequently interrupted by the rain so I used this time as an opportunity to dive into the greenhouse and catch up with pricking out seedlings and sowing yet more seeds.  Several packets of various primulas have been sown, probably a little late, but they are in the cool greenhouse so hopefully they will get a chance to germinate before the temperatures  go up.  I pricked out violas, nicotiana, geraniums and Centaurea ‘Aloha Blanca’.  The Dahlia tubers are sprouting well with one batch far ahead of the others.  I think this is because they benefitted from some direct sunshine in the top of the coldframe whilst the others were under the greenhouse benches.

With another quick visit to the Malvern Spring show to collect plants I am feeling a little gardened out.

Malvern Show Gardens

I’m no longer much of a fan of showgardens and tend to gravitate to the nurseries and floral marquee more.  However, I thought I would have a quick look to see what was on offer this year.  Malvern has always been one of the shows where new designers can stretch their wings and have a go at doing a show garden.

In my humble and inexpert view the gardens have a tendency to be fairly safe and what you would expect but then Malvern, in my opinion, is a show for plant buyers and has an excellent reputation for the number and variety of nurseries at the show and therefore it doesn’t really need to try to attract crowds with the promise of weird and wacky designs – that is the remit of Hampton Court Flower Show.

I only had time for a quick run round, plus the press and television crews were in the way, and so this post is very  much based on a fleeting glimpse

The two photographs above are of the garden that really quite my eye and made me stop in my tracks and I believe it received a Gold award.  It is designed by Villaggio Verde a fairly local company that specialises in olive trees and other mediterranean plants.  The garden is part of a set of gardens all celebrating the Tour de France and represents a cafe in the South of France where professional cyclists have stopped for 100 years.  I liked the non-fussy planting especially around the beehives and it felt to me a fair and realistic representation where the designer hadn’t got too carried out.

Another planting that appealed to me was in the garden called, A Return to the Med designed by The Garden Design House.  I liked the textures of the planting and also the detail in the pebble pathing.  I would like to replicate this pebble pathing on my patio although I suspect it would take me ages to do and may just send me mad so this will be an idea I file away again for yet another year.

The two photographs above show the planting in a garden entitled, Single Track Mind, designed by Teresa Rham of Groundesigns;  another garden in the Tour de France group.  The intention of the garden is to represent the mental challenges faced by the road racing cyclist.  I have to confess that I never really get the deeper meanings of these show gardens but again I was attracted to the planting.  The mixtures of textures and shades of green in the photograph above and the darker shades, again in flowers and foliage, in the top photograph.  Of course we have to remember that the plants are planted far closer together than any of us would in our gardens and this is typical for showgardens where there is a pathological fear of earth showing; honestly, they can get marked down on it!

Finally, this garden appealed to me – A Room for a View designed by Alchemy Gardens.  I suspect that I am attracted to both this garden and the very top one as they are completely different to mine.  Something that I could never have in my own garden and so far more interesting to me than the cottage/woodland style gardens.  I also suspect that there is an element of escapism in them, taking us to somewhere warm, and in the case of the Alchemy Garden, tropical which couldn’t be much further removed from the cold, damp and windy show ground yesterday.

Whilst these gardens are not as unattainable for the average gardener as the showgardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show they are still something that few of us would replicate in our gardens.  However, the pundits always like to say that the average gardener can get inspiration from showgardens so what  inspiration did I get from these?  As I have said I like the pebble pathing in the Return to the Med garden and the understated green textures of the Single Track Mind garden is food for thought when planting a border where you want interest besides relying on flowers.  The Cafe garden demonstrates the impact planting en masse can have and as for the last garden again the good foliage combinations are shown but really for me I just want to paddle my feet in the pool, who needs inspiration!!

My First Show Entry

I have been wooed through the garden clubs I attend to enter the world of competitive plant shows.  My curiosity was raised last summer when I visited my first AGS show and this Easter I made the decision to compete in my AGS group’s show next Easter and ordered some miniature bulbs in readiness.  It was during a conversation at that show that I learnt about the ‘open garden’ competition at the Malvern Spring show.  I was assured it was open to anyone and it was worth entering particularly because if you entered 5 classes you received a free pass to the show for all four days (equivalent to £95 worth of tickets).

Feeling inspired I requested a show schedule and spent an evening pouring over the classes to see what I could enter.  Despite having been to the show every year, bar one, for the last 10 years I had never really noticed this competition and so wasn’t sure what the competition would be like and what some classes really meant.  I decided to play safe and enter succulents as I knew they would be looking good on the day whereas categories such as narcissus, flowering shrubs, rhododendrons etc were much less predictable especially this year.  You have to put in your entry form a week in advance so you need to be able to judge what will be peaking when and this was to be quite frank all a bit beyond me.  I decided to enter: 3 succulents in 6″ pots, an echeveria, a succulent in a 10″ pot and two photography classes.

You have all day Wednesday until 6:45am Thursday to stage your plants at the show so Ben, my eldest, and I went down on Wednesday evening after dinner.  I have to admit to being quite intimidated about the competition that was there.  My 3 succulents in 6″ pots definitely didn’t stand a chance as I had gone for all Sempervivum and other entries were a mixture of far more interesting succulents – but I know for the future.  My photos whilst OK are taken with a bridge camera and cannot compete with images taken with SLRs and I think photographs are very subjective to judge but it meant I had my 5 entries.  I concluded that I had an outside chance with my two large succulents; an Echeveria Elegans and an Aeonium tabuliforme.

This morning I arrived at the show around 9 and after having a look at the show gardens before the forecast rain I plucked up the courage to see how I had done.  Unsurprisingly the photographs didn’t get ranked; the competition was stiff with at least 20 in each category.  My three succulents in small pots also as expected didn’t rank.  My Echeveria missed out and one which looked almost identical and wasnt in flower, like mine, came second – I suspect its foliage was in better shape but it was so hard to tell.

However, as I approached the last entry I could see a blue card in close proximity, my heart missed a beat.  Surely not, surely I couldn’t have won a prize on my first outing especially as the entries are judged to RHS standards.  But no there is was in glorious bright blue  – a 2nd place for my Areonium tabuliforme.  I was so incredibly excited but resisted the overwhelming urge to jump up and down and shout “I won a prize” – there would have been disdainful looks!!  Sons were texted with the news and dutifully responded with congratulations.

I spent the rest of today with a big grin on my face and a spring in my step.  I  also  spent a lot of money on some fabulous plants, garnered useful cultivation  information from lovely nurseryman, spent one and half hours moving plants on the plant creche, met up with Victoria and Michelle and helped Victoria in her hosta dilemma which got quite saucy but we shan’t go there.

Before I left with my haul I went back to the competition and went through the classes I thought I might be able to enter in the future and look photographs of the winners and how they were presented so I can see what I need to strive for next year. Oh and I won £3 for my second prize which was the same as I paid to enter the five classes so I have broken even and got free tickets – what more can a mad gardener ask for!!

Wordless Wednesday – 8/5/2013 Anemone xlipsiensis ‘Pallida’

A month later than 2012

Tulips

Any one who reads this blog will know that I have had a nightmare winter with a badger digging up all my tulips that I had planted in the back garden borders.  Luckily I had decided not to spend too much on tulips for the back garden this year as I wanted to see how well the previous year’s tulips did.  Instead I bought mainly narcissus as well as some tulips for the front garden.  I must have known that the tulip crazed badger would be coming to visit.  Anyway, late in the bulb buying season when there wasn’t much left I decided to empty out the tin bath of the lavender plants that weren’t doing that well and fill it with tulips – I think I saw something similar on Gardeners World.  The only bulbs I could find were in the bargain bin at the local DIY store and so I ended up with two packets of mixed and a couple of packets of another variety, something like Angelique but possibly not.

I filled the bath with compost and grit to help with drainage and packed the bulbs in tightly, you can see how tightly in this earlier blog post.  I was a little worried about how tightly they were packed in but I needn’t have worried as, I think you will agree, the bath looks fab and I am really chuffed with it.  Especially as the badger didn’t discover the patio, he would have to go down some steps to access, it and so instead of a mass display in the garden I am satisfying my love of tulips with this display.

Although of course there are the front garden Tulipa Ballerina which have opened and have been a triumph in my humble view.  My son has persuaded me that I need to balance them with some more on the other side of the lawn and I think I might even go across the bottom as well – why not!!   I was worried that they would look a bit like a bedding scheme planted straight down the side of the lawn so I tried not to plant them too regimentally although it wasn’t that easy.

This is the view from the front door which I am really enjoying at the moment especially when the morning sun lights them up and they are damp from dew.  They are interplanted with some small headed alliums which hopefully will follow on with a similar effect but in purple – we shall have to wait and see.

My garden this weekend – 5th May 2013

I probably should be waiting until tomorrow to write this post as we have a three-day weekend but I am a creature of habit and Sunday evenings have now become the time I review the garden over the last week.

For someone who is naturally self-effacing I find it hard to say that I am quite proud of the garden at the moment but it is true.  There was a moment this afternoon as the sun shone down through the branches of the Prunus, highlighting the blossom and glancing off the narcissus below  when I was thrilled with the effect.  After the last few years of just seeing what is wrong with the garden this was quite a revelation.

We have made huge progress on both the major projects this weekend and my body is certainly making me aware of the effort that has been made.  The projects are interlinked and one is dependant on another.  I have to admit that agreeing to my eldest having a workshop in the garden has had the unexpected benefit of him being keen to help me lift the back lawn.  I need somewhere to move all the plants from the workshop site and so the majority are moving into the new bed – when its dug.  The head turf lifter and border digger has worked very hard and we, should I say he, has lifted three-quarters of the turf.  I have followed behind and second dug adding green waste compost.  I have to admit to having a real wobble on Thursday evening when the work started.  I don’t do mess very well and I felt quite overwhelmed by the impending chaos but we sat down and worked out a plan and it has been great.  Working systematically across the back lawn as made it more mentally manageable for me and I have already moved the viburnum and rose (with its accompanying obelisk) that needed moving as well as some other plants.

I have to admit that the weather isn’t ideal for plant moving and the ground is a bit dry but we have rain forecast later in the week so hopefully if I can cosset them over the next few days they will pull through OK.  There was no real alternative as they have to move and we didn’t want to wait until Autumn to put the workshop in.  You can see in the photo above that we have left a grass path.  There is still the bit of lawn that runs down the garden to be lifted, although my son tried to convince me we should leave it as it was just the right size for sun-bathing – he even demonstrated!!  However, he agrees that we need to lift it all so that may get done tomorrow.  My job tomorrow will be working through the slope removing plants I don’t want and then moving those from the slope part of the workshop site across.  The workshop will mean that my daisy slope will be halved but I am content with that as I have gained so much more border to play with.

After this weekend I should be able to concentrate on normal gardening as the majority of the heavy plant moving will have been done.  My son has declared that he is going to finish clearing the workshop site so I don’t need to worry about that which is a relief.  I also managed to find a bit of time to stake the Delphinium which is a first as they normally get staked once they are too tall and it is all a bit closing the door after the horse has bolted.

I think this is the first year when I have really enjoyed working in the garden.  I am more confident with following my instinct and more aware of what is around me and what needs doing.  The word ‘bench’ has been mentioned a lot today as we need to have another one further up the garden.  It will be incorporated into the workshop site and it will be wonderful to have somewhere to sit, aside from the steps, to enjoy the garden.

 

My Current Inspiration

My overgrown slope with a late summer focus and lots of textures

This post is written in response to the latest prompt from the Grow Write Guild. We were asked to write about what inspired us to garden, or who our mentor was.

I don’t have a gardening mentor and I don’t really remember anyone in my past being very garden focussed.  I remember my parents clearing overgrown gardens so we spent a lot of time outside but they have a tendency towards lawn so that can’t have fuelled my passion.  I remember spending time with my aunt’s mother who had a small greenhouse and being fascinated by it but I don’t remember gardening with her so I have no idea where my passion comes from.

I am self-taught, I read lots of horticultural literature and over the years have picked up tips from various television programmes and a few day schools I have attended but I have had no mentor.  However there are writers who inspire me and I have pondered on this post trying to decide who I would like to be my mentor if I could choose and meet that person in real life.  My first choice was Christopher Lloyd, fairly obvious and I love his writing and his passion but I think he would be too intimidating as a mentor and my confidence is a fragile thing.  Also whilst I like his style and his ‘I’ll do what I want’ approach I’m not so keen on some of his planting.  I used to think I liked the big tropical  look but actually deep down inside I am a true English girl and I like the cottage garden look far more.

The patio border – its late summer appearance, it also has lots of spring bulbs

However, I have discovered someone else who I can completely relate to and whose book, he has written only one, encouraged me hugely last year.  David Culp is an American horticulturist and gardens in Pennsylvania.  He wrote a book called The Layered Garden which I reviewed last year.  Like Lloyd and others his approach is to build up the borders with layers and not just the border the garden.  So whilst each border has one or two seasons of interest when it isn’t at its peak it still looks good.  He gardens around the year and his book spoke to me as he not only loves plants but the same plants as me.  His garden is romantic, lush and quite wonderful – well if the photographs are to go by.

He made me start to think about how you use plants.  Yes he collects plants but he also understands about how to create a garden with them and how to show them at their best.  Planting so one plant picks up on the colouring of its neighbour or contrasts with the textures etc and this is something I am now trying to do.  I found his approach liberating, he states that you should garden for yourself.  You should forget about the current trends and what the neighbours will think. “Experiment, play with colours, do what pleases you, and do not be afraid to change things if you wish.” He talks at one point about how his grandmother when he was small planted a bed with hot and spicy coloured plants which was against the norm and how it had an impact on him at the time which has given him the courage in his later life to do what he wanted.  He says there is no rule book when it comes to planting, “Some gardeners get so hung up on all the “rules” that have been laid down by so many “experts” that they are constantly wondering, “What am I doing wrong”? My first rule for designing a garden is that there are no rules….” and I find this quite exhilarating.

Another view of the slope

There is a page in the book where he shows a border when he first creatred the garden and it now.  The first picture shows a border which I have to say I would be pleased with and looks a little like mine now (see photos of the slope) – he calls it dull.  But rather than be deflated by this I am inspired by the ‘now’ photo which shows a border with many of the same plants: irises, roses, geraniums etc but it is alive and exuberant because he has incorporated some fluffy grasses, architectural Phormium and there is a repetition to the planting and the colours. Not only does he look at the contrast or harmony of colours but also their values and as someone who has spent time painting this makes sense to me.

I spend ages peering at the photographs.  I really wish I had the book electronically so I could enlarge them and peer closer. There are archetypal herbaceous borders but with a twist, collections of pots, a gravel garden, a shady slope, a hellebore garden and rose beds.

Not only does David advocate an approach I aspire to achieve and which I admire hugely  but  he is a plant collector with passions for snowdrops, hellebores, narcissus, epimediums and many more.  Here is someone who has found a way to collect the plants he loves but to also create a garden with them which has a cohesive appearance and not a hotch potch as my garden had begun to turn into.

Having read David’s book last year I took a different approach to planting the front garden.  I thought about the structure of the borders as well as how the plants interplay and picked up on each other.  I have still got a very long way to do but I am pleased with the results already and I am finding that I am looking at the plants I love differently and my garden is benefitting from it.

So whilst I might not have, or have had, a real life mentor I am currently inspired by David Culp – his book makes me think but also makes me feel that the look I long to achieve is within my grasp.